2018 MOST WANTED DRIVER

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Today, we bring you MyGolfSpy’s Most Wanted Driver for 2018. Over a total of 245 sessions, testers of all ages, swing speeds, and handicaps tested 27 different drivers to produce the largest independent and unbiased driver test that the golfing world has ever seen. For 2018, we increased our tester-base and refined our analytics to bring you the most comprehensive data we’ve ever produced.

Adding yet another piece to the puzzle, statistical significance – the results are more reliable than ever.

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We are here to help you find golf equipment that you will not only love but want to keep, and we don’t want you spending a dollar unless what you’re getting improves on what’s already in the bag.

If you are in the market for a new driver this season, this test is for you.

Advanced Golf Analytics

Data matters. And when it comes to finding the right equipment, it’s critical. We help solve this by applying the largest connected set of head-to-head data to tackle one of golf’s biggest challenges.

All testing was conducted inside our fully independent test facility located in Virginia. All testers used Bridgestone Tour B-RX golf balls for consistency and to reduce test variables. All ball and head data were collected using Foresight Sports GCQuad Launch Monitors. This comprehensive dataset was then run through our proprietary Most Wanted Rankings methodology. What we have developed is the most comprehensive test to determine the leaders in the driver category.

SHOTS HIT: 10,071

DATA POINTS: 493,871

TIME: 245 hours

TESTERS: 35

HANDICAP RANGE: +2 – 17

AGE RANGE: 24 – 84

SWING SPEED RANGE: 70mph – 120mph

Our Most Wanted winner is the club that finished in the statistically significant top group (based on Strokes Gained Driving) for the highest percentage of our testers. To simplify things a bit, we call the final order TRUERank; a metric that includes the order of finish (rank), along with the percentage of golfers for whom each club was shown to be in the top group.

For complete details of the testing and ranking process, see our How We Test page.

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2018 Driver Rankings

PING G400 LST

Distance

3rd

Accuracy

15.73 yds

Spin

2348 rpm

Launch

14.02 deg

Ball Speed

134.99 mph

TRUERank

1 (51%)

1

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2018 Driver Data

The table below displays outlier removed averages of the general set of launch metrics gathered during the Most Wanted Driver Test. The data can be filtered by club using the drop-down list and sorted by column using the sort buttons aside each column header.

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219 Comments

Jordan

7 months ago

I tried a bunch of drivers before buying one the ping felt awesome but I found it felt really good even when I hit it really bad off the heel or toe and I couldn’t quite feel where it came off the face. Where as when I tested some of the other drivers if I hit it off the toe I knew before even looking up that I had hit it off the toe and could work on adjusting my swing accordingly the ping just felt perfect every time even if it was a terrible hit. Maybe some ppl like that but personally I like to know what I’m doing wrong so I could work on fixing it. I had the same issue with the m4. Felt to good on the bad shots

Bill Berg

10 months ago

What happened to the Callaway Epic?
I had a 10 year old Callaway 460 Tour 9 degree stiff.
My shaft broke. I had $500 credit in the proshop and bought the Epic back in late October 2017. Then in March they brought out the Rogue.
The Epic is never talked about any more but it is still on the Callaway website.

scott

Sam

3 months ago

Callaway’s new supply process is to do limited runs of all products as opposed to flooding the market like in the past. The EPIC is an excellent driver and they ended up selling out of them way sooner than expected. instead of building more, they launched the replacement model, the Rogue.

Gerald Lim

1 year ago

great work and very surprising to see the Ping. May I know whats shafts were installed in the test. or were they all factory shafts

Clay

SAm

3 months ago

I agree, longer shaft would decrease smash and it also increases spin rate. that has been a constant battle for club manufacturers. Remember the campaigns from a few years back for making clubs extremely light way with super long shafts? yeah that was a major engineering fail because the spin got so out of control the dispersion was all over. you can swing a club harder and faster, but the negative affects of the spin will exceed that of the extra speed. having the right weight balance is important.

Jakesofa

1 year ago

You gotta love all the, “I haven’t read the whole article, but” baloney. Any one who makes that kind of statement, just ……..stop. Read the freakin article do your research, cause if you did you would know the evolution of these test on MyGolfSpy and the amount of work that It takes to pull all this off. Old technology? Look at the old tests to see how they perform. Why test it over and over again to just get the same results. The people that make these kind of demands obviously work in middle management in some soulless corporation to make that kind of statement. You want more information about smaller test groups? wait until the Spies release it. They have been doing this long enough to keep us interested and bring us in for more. Don’t like how they release the information, do your own study.
MyGolfSpy has done more for the average golfer than most people realize. Their willingness to ask the hard questions, and cover the less than favorable(according to the industry) products, (remember their stance and defense of the Kirkland bal?) is the reason why I give them the benefit of the doubt, if not my complete support on almost anything they do.

Donn Rutkoff

1 year ago

I have not read thru all the comments and replies so my suggestion might be redundant.

Instead of lumping all the data together, I suggest use a smaller group of people, and segregate by flex they use. The stiff flex guy is too different than me to be of much use to me. I know you are trying to provide a guide for the non-fitted guy. But it doesn’t take 245 hitters to do that. And the comments about how many outliers you eliminate is very important. 1 outlier per 20 hits is way different than 4. But I appreciate you testing without the brand name companies running the show.

Station

1 year ago

I concur with this. The range of types of players included in this test pool provides no clarity for me when seeking out results for my specific needs. I’m sure MGS will take care of this matter as they release the winners for faster and slower swing speeds.

Nate

1 year ago

This exactly. The smaller 440 head is ideal for a good ball striker with a high swing speed imo. The avg ball speed for all the clubs seemed low to me, so I think that would skew the result in favor of the game improvement clubs.

werekong

1 year ago

I would like to know if drivers are actually evolving/improving from one year to the next so I would suggest an iron byron test would eliminate year to year testing variables. I realize that this probably wouldn’t provide useful data for human play, but it would be interesting to see if manufacturers’ claims of better drivers each year has any merit.

Johnny Penso

1 year ago

Drivers are already at their limutations of “hotness”. Any improvements from here forward will be from moving weight around to affect ball flight and spin, making mishaps more forgiving and from the shafts.

Johnny Penso

1 year ago

Arggggh…spellcheck!!

john

1 year ago

I appreciate all of your work and all the data but it would be very helpful to compare some of these drivers to previous years models. Rather than measuring the best of THIS year it would be nice to know if there has been any real improvement and evolution over past years. I can’t see spending money on a new paint job.

jim golf

1 year ago

How about the take the winner from each of the last 5 years and put them against each other! Lets see if there is any noticeable change year to year before we al keep buying a new $500plus driver every year because of hype.

john

OK some complaints but testing and compiling results, especially highly detailed results (SS classifications, etc.), costs more and more. Most likely highly worth it to the technical golfer. So pony up and send in a contribution – donate to the cause for more analysis !
I will and I’m not interested beyond the generalities since at 70 my SS is on the invariable decline.

Anonymous

Vinny

1 year ago

The comparisons are very interesting. However, the motor that drives the head, the shaft, has not been mentioned. Most of the modern drivers are within feet of each other, the major contributor is the shaft.
Recommend that this be added to your reviews.

Vinny, good comment. But much more than shaft drives results. Shaft weight, flex profile, club length, club weighting, club face angle, loft all important. Also the golf swing and how they connect to the club the golfer swings. For some shaft may be major, for others other fitting parameters may be major.

Steve S

1 year ago

Adam and Tony,

You guys need to add to every Most Wanted article a banner with blinking lights: “Additional data with swing speed breakdown coming next week!” Oh yeah, in all caps and 22 font so the guys that don’t bother reading will see it.

Todd

Chris C.

1 year ago

Your efforts are greatly appreciated. My following suggestion should not be interpreted as an attempt to denigrate your efforts. I continue to believe that reporting the number of mulligans for each club is more than a mere curiosity. I understand that your strokes gained methodology attempts to leverage aspects of distance, accuracy and consistency. However, it appears that the calculations are based on 10 to 12 “good shots”. If the “Most Wanted Driver” needed significantly more outliers to be eliminated in order to obtain 10 to 12 good shots, would anyone actually want it. Again, when I started last season with the Epic it was because the Epic was a fitting beast. However, the Epic “won” because I and my fitter opted to eliminate outliers. Alas, once the Epic was put into play it was not possible to ignore all of those outliers. If the use of outliers is necessary, perhaps it can be limited. Perhaps each Driver can be limited to one breakfast ball. Each Driver gets hit 11 times and the 10 best shots are all counted as “good shots”. Again, I thank you for your efforts in producing these test results.

11hcp/95mph

1 year ago

3 weeeks ago I was fitting session to find out if I “need” to update my olf Cobra flyZ+. I tested all new driver available in shop (TM, Ping, Cobra, Titleist, Callaway). There was 2 clubs that fit to my swing: 917D3 and G400LST. Titleist was few meters longer when perfect contact but Ping was much better when mishit (and it happened more than often). My average ball speed is now +5pmh with g400lst compared to old Cobra that was also fitted to me.

TCS

1 year ago

Sorry to beat you up over this MGS, but feels like you’re playing into the same marketing hype that we complain about from the manufacturers. This list of top drivers based on the averages (80mpg to 120mph) is completely meaningless to the individual….yet I’m sure many will run out and purchase based on your announcement of the “winner”. I really expected better from you guys, please get the individual tester data out there, or at least provide the data in small swing speed categories. If the data is there and I’m just not seeing it, then I’ll eat crow for breakfast lunch and dinner…

Anonymous

1 year ago

While this list is great, and the amount of testing done to compile it is appreciated, the real answer is the best driver is the one that performs best for you. You have to encourage people to test and get fit for the clubs to see how they perform and make sure what they are investing their money in is right for them

Jamie

1 year ago

Great work My Golf Spy. I love your commitment to providing unbiased data. I have a few questions, comments and suggestions.

First, it appears that all of the top tier club makers (Callaway, Taylormade, Ping, Callaway, Titleist) make very good clubs. The distance difference from the best and worst of these clubs was minimal. Individuals might see large distance or accuracy gains depending on their unique needs (such as low or high spin) but this data suggests that their isn’t one driver that is significantly better than all the rest.

I find it interesting when comparing the results of the Titleist 917 D2 and D3 from last year to this year. Nothing has changed from these clubs from last year to this year other than possibly the shaft offering, which in my experience, they don’t make massive changes to. Last year I think it would have been fair to broadly categorize them as shorter distance, higher spinning although they were among the most accurate. This year however both the D2 and D3 are in the top half of the group in both total distance and lowest spinning. Did the shaft offering this year really make the results that much better? Or are the 2018 drivers just worse competition than those in the comparison in 2017?

One suggestion that I would offer for future Most Wanted tests would be to include last years winner. Even if it isn’t a currently available model. Wouldn’t it be great to show people that the latest and greatest tech isn’t always better. Imagine if the Ping G400 LST beat the Ping G500 LST or even better, won a second year in a row.

Nathan

1 year ago

People sure are entitled. This is a free website. People upset the data don’t tell them what they want are free to look elsewhere. This content didn’t even exist for the longest time.

In medical trials, a frequent topic of debate is do we compare a new drug/device to “best known practice” or to “most common intervention”. Best known practice in this case is golfers going to get fitted (yes thank you wizards we know shafts/swing speeds/ball types will vary results) which is impossible to compare. MGS is doing great with a difficult task. Be grateful or go get fitted

Phil Graham

1 year ago

I have to agree with a few comments in that without looking at much narrower ranges, this is largely pointless. I’m around 110mph swing speed and just found about 5 yards carry switching from a Ping G400 LST to the Rogue SZ. Horses for courses. Hopeful there’ll be a breakdown by SS categories or even individual testers soon.

Duffy McHackster

1 year ago

Hello Spies. As usual, some great work on your part, (and that of the lucky buggers who got to test all the goodies) to bring us the BS free info we are all here for. Really looking forward to the swing speed breakdowns. I would definitely qualify donating to the cause as money well spent. Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Sean

Todd

1 year ago

How many people will run out and buy the G400 LST because of this hype? I say hype becase this announcment is actually quite useless without individual tester results, or at least by swing speed ranges. Everybody wants to know what is best for their ability level, not the average of 80mph to 120mph players! just surprised it wasnt all released together…you’re better than this MGS haha.

SBM

1 year ago

I agree, the numbers mean nothing without more breakdown. Would be interesting to see the results broken down into 10mph swing speed bands. What does %age in top mean?
DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE. LOVE THE NUMBERS

George

Bob K

1 year ago

Can you compare last years top driver (Srixon 565) to this years winner? The testing seems to be done a little differently this year and Srixon wasn’t tested. Last years ball speeds and distances were higher.

MG

1 year ago

It would be interesting to see some individual numbers from the “best” driver and the “worst” driver for each tester. Or even just a few testers so we can get an idea how important it is to choose the right driver for you. any chance we can see this?

Johnny Cowboy

Bryan Hylo

1 year ago

Hi
well that might be a mistake than because I had that driver and I’m a low handicap golfer but this year I got the Ping G400 max and blew the LST out of the water for me and I’m about 105 ss , and like someone said what works for me might not work for you

JasonA

Part of video I found interesting is evidence multiple different fitters finding the G400 range working for range of players. Doing as many custom G400 builds as Taylormade and Callaway combined.

Mike

1 year ago

I would love to see these done with a conex shaft adapter to normalize shaft. I understand that would change what you’re testing but it could make things more interesting. You’d have maybe 3 shafts for 3 categories of swing speeds.

Totally agree Mike. Lots of great and interesting results – but the results do not prove that one head better than another, they suggest that one combination of head shaft weight length might be better for some golfers. Not easy to do fully scientific testing.

Todd

1 year ago

So these results are really only meaningful if you fall into the very average golfer category…hitting 218 carry with a driver. Is MGS falling into the marketing hype frenzy of promoting Most Wanted Drivers when these results are only for a very specific type of golfer? Hmmm

Todd

so why publish all this without the specific tester tesults, or at least by swing speed categories? Pure hype so far and not relevant to any particular player since merely an overall average.

The Old Billy Baroo

1 year ago

What? No Bombtech Grenade driver!
Just kidding.
Nothing makes me happier than to have the Most Wanted Driver test results around The Masters. Great work!
Btw, will you ever bring back the individual driver reviews you use to have on MGS about 8 years ago?

davidw3673

1 year ago

Good work, but I’m waiting for the swing speed breakdown. Will it include handicap and swing speed? I’m a 18 with a driver speed of 96-99, and while my dispersion is much worse than your testers, my distance (carry and total) is much more, measured on a launch monitor and on the course. I’m really interested to see which clubs worked better for the guys closer to my (lack of) ability level.

Golfinnut

I appreciate you guys so much and feel bad for you when people over analyze your data. The average golfer probably does not even understand half of this data but the bottom line is all the drivers are very similar and are good clubs. I am 65 and still a single digit handicap. Why? Because after my 220 yard drive down the middle is out driven by my buddies, I will throw a dart at the pin and rarely 3 putt. Think about that. Can’t wait to see the data according to swing speed.

JasonA

Thanks & great work – I understand and really like the rank being based on “probability that this driver is as good as the best driver”.

I understand Strokes Gained, and why MGS is doing SGvA. Great stats work all around.

One thing I want to be sure of is that the SGvA shown is per shot. So difference between best vs worst SGvA = 0.026 – (-0.035) = 0.061 and assuming 14 drives a round that would make a difference of 0.854 shots per round. Correct?

Fantastic in-depth review and head to head. I’ve always been a TaylorMade fan but in the past few years in sick of their marketing and changing of direction with their products. Its made me go back to Ping so I’m happy to see Ping rising to the top again.
Thanks for a great article.

Steve C

1 year ago

I would be curious to see the average difference, either distance or strokes gained, for the best and worst driver for the testers. Another way of asking what kind of difference would we expect to see between the best and worst driver for an individual.

true streve,Lots of great and interesting results – but the results do not prove that one head better than another, they suggest that one combination of head shaft weight length might be better for some golfers. Not easy to do fully scientific testing.

Birdieputt13

1 year ago

Tony; as much as I appreciate what your trying to present, the data offered is, to me, confusing. There isn’t an appreciable difference in the data for most drivers performance and yet that simply isn’t the case in the real world.
In the carry category for example, the longest carry, according to your data is the Mizuno ST-180 at 219.00 yards and the shortest, the Wilson Staff C300 at 211.19. That’s a difference of 7.81 yards or about 03.6%.
If one used a robotic “Iron Byron” and could offer the exact same swing speed, we might be able be able to draw some meaningful data.
As you know, the shaft of any club, especially the driver, is critical to performance and so to say you used the stock shafts really doesn’t help rate a driver. We both know that shafts vary considerably.
In my opinion, your efforts are laudable; however, the results leave one in a confused state.

I think we’d agree that the group averages are interesting to look at, but don’t show a whole lot. The differences are really found in the individual performances, which is why we’ll be posting individual swing speed breakdowns in the next week or so.

Regarding robots – it’s been covered. It’s not the right way to do performance testing like this. Literally, everyone we’ve spoken with (has to be about 2 dozen R&D guys by now) is in agreement on that. I certainly understand why readers think it makes sense, but the fact is that robots don’t deliver the club in the same way that humans do. Things like load at the top of the swing and in transition, lead deflection (the club racing ahead of the shaft leading into impact), toe down (flattening of the club leading into impact), closure rate (twisting to square) – all things that significantly impact the resulting ball flight – simply don’t translate from human to machine.

I’m glad that you mentioned the shaft because all of those things I just mentioned are also influenced by the shaft in human hands, and what most don’t understand is that basically nothing changes when you make a shaft change on a robot. Flex differences don’t manifest, nor do profile differences (again – all things that rely on loading and unloading of the shaft and the dynamic stuff that happens as a result), and so you don’t really get the full impact of head CG or shaft dynamics in the resulting ball flight. You get this almost stationary thing that doesn’t work like it does when humans swing it. Sure, robots remove inconsistency, but they often do so at the expense of creating something that’s apples to oranges in the real world.

And of course, all of this assumes that you can stick two clubs in robot and align them precisely to face center impact. For apples to apples, you can’t be close, you have to be perfect. In one case I was told about, it took an OEM more than 2 days to get a single club perfectly aligned.

Consider Fujikura. I’d argue that they are at the forefront of using technology (ENSO) to pioneer new shaft designs. PING is the only OEM that has an ENSO system. It’s notable that both leverage the technology for human testing because it’s really the only way to see how the shaft and head will behave in human hands.

That’s not to say robots are useless. They have their place in design. They’re also great when the club itself isn’t the thing being tested. One of the guys I know in the industry is starting to look at some predictive stuff that could prove very interesting. There are plenty of solid applications for robots, but large-scale driver tests really isn’t one of them.

Birdieputt13

1 year ago

Thanks for your response Tony and please don’t get me wrong. I understand what you’re trying to accomplish and also realize the limitations of “robots” when used in driver or iron testing. Your points are both relevant and timely.
Perhaps you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned breaking down your date by swing speed. That I think, would provide meaningful data for all of us. We can then compare our own swing speeds with similar speeds from your testers and have some data that is meaningful when we are shopping for a new driver.

Tom Higgins

1 year ago

The long and short of it is that everyone seems to be thinking distance first when it comes to drivers. Both Wilson Staff drivers were on the top of the list as far as low spin rates. 3.6% longer, but with a so-so lie in the first cut?

Vincent

1 year ago

Thank you for the quality of the test and its conclusion: all the drivers have the same results, more or less, for 99,9% of the players. It is all about marketing, and marketing sensibility is a human fact.

I suppose I can see how you might think that just looking at the raw data, but by applying an evaluation of statistical significance we see that there are big differences on the individual basis. Sure, there’s a ton of marketing, but some do a better job of living up to their own hype than others. That is to say, some designs work better for a higher percentage of golfers than others.

Philip

1 year ago

Why wasn’t club head speed listed like it was last year? Would be really helpful in comparing YOY data to determine whether 2018 numbers are better/worse than 2017. Without the club speed number it’s tough to know if testing conditions were similar.

jc

1 year ago

Question, I hit my 3hybrid farther than my driver, does that mean I need a stiffer shat in my driver? right now i’m using a regular flex with 10.5 loft and I hit the ball extremely high into the air. Do i need to lower my loft? Thanks!﻿

JC

1 year ago

Thanks for the response Tony! That makes sense about the sweet spot, i suppose I can use some contact spray/tape to see where i hit the ball.

mackdaddy

1 year ago

Adam, I miss the old matrix with tester options. I think it was better when I could look at testers that had swing speeds near mine, that were closer to my age things like that. I would love to see that come back.

Stevegp

1 year ago

Thank you for undertaking this major project. Your efforts are most appreciated. This is an interesting test with so many variables and factors to consider. I’m looking forward to your upcoming breakdowns by categories. Ranking by swing speed particularly interests me. Thanks again.

Anonymous

alex

1 year ago

You mentioned the LST tested best among all the categories of swings— does that include the lower swing speed folks? ( I was always under the impression that LST was for folks who have big clubhead speed– but I guess I’ll wait until the breakout articles).

Just gave a quick overview in response to a previous comment. A bit more detail can be found in our how we test page.

Short version – we use strokes gained driving as our key performance metrics, and then, on a per tester basis, put the top performing driver along with any others that were not reliably different (95% confidence interval) into each tester’s top group. Final rankings are based on how often each driver appears in that statistical top group.

G400 LST was ranked #1 because it finished in the top group for the highest percentage of testers.

Geoff

1 year ago

A little confused on the true rank. If I look at the differences between the M3 and M3 440, the stats are close to identical, with the M3 beating it on certain metrics (like ball speed, carry and distance). I don’t see anywhere where the delta is super significant, yet M3 is ranked near the bottom (tied 22), and M3 440 is 2nd? Also, for categories like spin, is lower considered just automatically better? Shouldn’t there be an ideal medium point or something?

If you haven’t looked at it yet, check out the how we test and rank page.

Quick overview – we identify the best performing driver (based on strokes gained) for each tester.

We then determine – at a 95% confidence interval – which drivers were not reliably different from that top driver. That gets us a group that varies from 1 driver for some, to more than half the field for others that – from a statistical viewpoint – can be considered as offering the same or very similar performance.

We then look at how often each driver appears in the top group across all testers. The M3 440 was in that top group for 49% of our testers.

It’s definitely the anomaly in our top 3. Most of the averages in our table suggest mediocre performance, but within the larger picture, it was a driver that was among the very best for nearly half of our testing pool, though I suspect it performed below average for a good chunk of that other 51%.

To put this in perspective, while the results suggest the M3 440 has a better than average chance of being a great driver for any given golfer, there are hints in the data that suggest it’s more likely to offer below average performance than the typical driver in this test as well. Basically, it might be great, it might be awful, but the odds of it being simply average one way or the other for any given golfer are low.

Gordon

Anonymous

1 year ago

How does the top 3 compare to last years Top 3. I got the Epic Subzero last year and this year looking for irons. I love it. For fun I did my own head to head with Rogue SZ and the numbers where identicle. Actually less distance but was left bias Vice right like the Epic. I find most courses are more forgiving right than left. But I have no proof. You are the professionals and do a great job. Thanks.

THOMAS CRISAN

1 year ago

Just finished reading all comments listed. As data geek data is OK / broad based. However if your in the market for a new gamer, you had better wait for more finite breakdown as one cannot make a purchase on this data alone

Steve

1 year ago

Bottom line is GET FITTED.
Be sure to use the ball you like to play as it makes a difference.
Let’s say you like a tour level ball around the greens but with it you get too much spin from a particular driver/shaft combination. Causing a loss is distance and accuracy (curves too much) then you have to decide do you go with this driver but change balls or keep the ball you like from 100 yds. and go with a different driver/shaft combination. You need to evaluate the entire game not just a club you might use 14 times at most.

GregB

1 year ago

Steve is absolutely right; you need to get fitted! I’ve seen demonstrations whereby two or three golfers test out the same two or three drivers (all top rated) and each came away with a different driver as their “best”. I think it’s pretty impressive that the Ping G400 LST came away with 51% of the test points in the top ranking, but it is still only 51% – not 100%. I have a friend who came away from a fitting a few years back with a new Cobra driver (don’t remember the model) but Cobra came in last in 2018 compilation. Doesn’t mean they aren’t the best driver for someone, maybe just not the the “best” for you or me.

DaveMac

1 year ago

Tony, would you confirm that each tester tested the most appropriate head loft (adjusted as required) for their needs?
Reason I asked I noticed launch angle for the ST 180 is the highest in the test, so I assume both the 9.5 neutral and 12.5 neutral heads make up this launch angle.

DaveMac

1 year ago

Sam, thanks for the clarification. In my admittedly brief test I found the ST low launching in the 9.5 neutral head. It looks hideously closed at 11.5. I hope to be testing the 12.5 tomorrow.
I realise it’s a pain but it might be worthwhile publishing the actual head loft (stamped and measured if you want) for each driver tested.
Appreciate the hard work.

DaveMac

1 year ago

Sam, Tony, following on from my question on club head loft. This year’s data looks less differentiated than previous tests, probably as a direct result of putting the best fit available shaft in the hands of each tester. The differences in performance are more about how the driver models match the needs of the majority of your testers, rather than one model being statistically significantly better than another. This performance gap would likely be even smaller if the right loft was available to each tester.

We fitted and tested the same way we did last year, though I suppose it’s reasonable to point out that 2 years ago we narrowed our specs to 9°/9.5° and 10°/10.5° and regular and stiff only. When we looked at specs across model lines, not every club is offered in an 8-something, or 11…or 12…or 13 or off the rack in X or Senior. Basically, we made the change to level the playing field. But again, that change was made prior to last year’s testing.

I think the most significant contributor to the leveling of averages is the fact that we’ve increased the number of testers (from 30 to 35) and we made a greater effort to bring in more slower swing speed players (I believe the average swing speed in this year’s test is down by a few MPH). Basically, we’ve tried to level our testing pool, and I think in doing so we’ve leveled the numbers a bit as well.

DaveMac

1 year ago

Thanks Tony, I really do appreciate the work that goes into these tests. I can see it is getting harder each year. Looking forward to the additional data (Cg locations and swing speed adjusted findings)

Allen

1 year ago

How much better were the top drivers compared to the Srixon 565 driver from last year? I understand why you do not put that driver in the competition, it might do as well or better than this years models.

Last year’s driver test leveraged a ranking methodology that I’d describe as almost, but not quite, Strokes Gained. At that time we were still trying to figure out to implement a Strokes Gained metric in a large scale test. We got that up and running during iron testing last year – and so other than one minor tweak, buy the time we get into GI irons, we’ll be in year two of that piece of the methodology.

Over the last couple of years we’ve also started to look into statistical significance and how we might introduce that into our tests. Interestingly (at least to me) that push came more from our readers than from the industry. I started looking at that pretty heavily earlier this winter and looked at a couple of different ways to do it before taking an approach that was both statistically sound and fit with what we’re trying to do here. That piece was literally down to the wire (we actually pushed the results a week so I could get my proof of concept operational and get some feedback from the industry guys).

We’re really happy with it and expect it will be the way we do things moving forward, so I expect we’ll be consistent with methodologies and ranking moving forward, which should allow us to make more interesting year over year comparisons – at least as it relates to how often drivers appear the top group across all testers.

Murinho

Dan

1 year ago

Can you elaborate more (and I did read the “How we test” page) as to how you determine your Strokes Gained? I understand the concept of Strokes Gained of various measures for players during a tournament, ie, if someone drives the ball 30 yards farther and in the fairway compared to someone 30 yards shorter and in the rough, the longer one in the fairway will gain a stroke over the other player as far as their score in the tournament. But for your measures there is no score, there is no tournament, so what are you gaining strokes over, and what determines that measure, is it made up of the various launch monitor numbers, if so which ones, and how do you weigh them?
Thanks!

Dan

The value is based on the probability of success on your next shot. You don’t need a final hole score to calculate it.

Before we get into it, I should mention that we don’t test on an open driving range. We test on a projection of an actual golf hole that has clearly defined fairway and rough. I’d also add that roll distance is influenced by the grass length just as it in on an actual golf course.

Our test hole has a preset length for every shot. This starting distance is essential for any strokes gained stat.

After each shot is hit, we calculate the remaining distance to the hole and determine the resulting lie condition.

From there finding the Strokes Gained value that matches the remaining distance and lie condition is essentially a table lookup. A quick example – A shot that leaves 100 yards to the flag from the fairway has a greater strokes gained value than one that leaves 100 yards to the flag from the rough.

This is all public domain stuff guys, I would encourage you to dig in a little deeper if you’re interested in the stat.

Dan

1 year ago

I appreciate you clarifying, but even on your “How We Test” page, that wasn’t explained. Where else are we supposed to find that testing information since you don’t explicitly state it on this page or the How We Test page? That seems like a pretty important concept to communicate, rather than a statement of using “Strokes Gained,” which has multiple uses (as you just elaborated on), and expect us to understand what exactly is being measured.

In the how we test page, we use “Strokes Gained” because it can apply to strokes gained driving (Driver and Fairway testing), Strokes Gained Approach shots (hybrids, irons, wedges). I’ll see what I can do to add clarification to the test page itself.

Dan

1 year ago

Thanks Tony

MGolfer2

1 year ago

The biggest winner from the test results: golf club fitters. The result shows that all major drivers are fairly close for the average of 35 testers, but an individual tester can get much better results with one specific driver. Time to get fit.

Duncan

1 year ago

I would like to know what the testing differences are between 2018 and 2017 because ball speeds last year showed 140 mph, carry and distance were longer with last year’s list. Very hard to compare the list of this year’s winners to last based on the data. Based on the data, it appears every club manufacturer went backwards.

MGolfer

Did you tell them that they were selected because they are older & slower?

🙂 sorry cannot resist..

Zane Belden

1 year ago

Excellent test and data. Super valuable. Thanks very much for putting this out!

Question: I currently play the Ping G and am happy to see how well the Ping G400 drivers did in the testing, but I also play/have played various Krank Long drive drivers in scrambles. Considering they win a huge amount of the long drive competitions, is there any chance you could add their drivers in these tests? Would be very interesting based on their results in long drivers and the claims they make.

Krank hasn’t wanted to participate in years, but it’s something we can look at for next time.

What we saw last time we tested them was significantly higher than average spin. This isn’t surprising given the design of the face. If you’re someone who swings up on the ball and generally makes high face contact (long drive guys) it can work really well, but the tall face makes for an inherently higher spin design that can be overcome with club delivery, but not in a way that’s typical of how most golfers deliver the club.

Lray

1 year ago

Tony, I am a big fan of MGS, but your first sentence has me a bit confused. Your testing is based upon buying clubs off the rack. If you wanted to test Krank, it seems that you could just go buy one and add it to the mix. Am I wrong in my understanding?

We could, but we have to pick our spots for companies who decline to participate. Our budget is not unlimited and sometimes we have to prioritize market share leaders like Callaways and TaylorMades. This is especially true when clubs from those fringe companies have performed poorly in past tests (Krank finished last several years ago and has not participated since). Similarly to the situation with Bombtech, the design isn’t fundamentally different so we have no reason to expect it will perform significantly better.

Nick

1 year ago

Tony, I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear an actual review of Krank drivers. I’ve hit Krank drivers for years because they offer the lower lofts I need and have been pleased with them BUT I’ve never known how they actually compare! They offer no reason or scientific explanation for their OUTSTANDING CLAIMS. They’ve never been able to tell me about Center of Gravity or anything else along those lines…. they usually just say how its the furthest driver ever created in the history of mankind!

Nick

1 year ago

….and, having been a long-time customer of Krank, I’d be more than interested in having them in the test. If you guys are willing to have your testers have one more driver, I will supply Krank drivers for next years test!! I’ve spent THOUSANDS on their drivers and would love to see how they really compare!! I like them but am sick of the outlandish, unbacked claims. Up to you guys when the time comes!! But if you’re up for it, I will supply you new Krank Drivers in the loft and shafts you need!

A very thorough test which shows that there is a very small difference in the carries of all drivers tested. The PING drivers came out the test well from dispersion result.
Sometimes the choice of a driver can be a little subjective. For example, I have used a PING G25 and a Titleist 915 D2 with regular shafts but sold on because both had a very loud, tinny sound on impact. I also found the Titleist did not launch high enough for me.
I have reverted back to my favourite COBRA F7 with a Lite shaft and to my ears it sound the best.

Petermo

1 year ago

Thanks again for the results.

What this shows me is that there are really no bad clubs – the performance is so consistent across the board that it will come down to what suits the individual – look, feel, color etc all of which add up to confidence.

We only hit a driver off a tee 14 times a round and if we’re in play at a reasonable distance, that’s all that really matters. I’m hard pressed to find a club like more than my Callaway X2 which I can generally hit where I want it.

Felipe

1 year ago

Good job! Now to make it even better, let’s get let’s say the top 5 from each of the last 5yrs and rank them based on performance and nothing but performance. We all know that the latest and most expensive aren’t always the best performing.

Murf

1 year ago

Appreciate the effort. Makes for a solid discussion. But doesn’t change a thing within my next purchase parameters. I’m still “brand agnostic” going into my fitting. Knowing it will end being a combo of both the clubhead AND the shaft that the fitting process matches to my numbers provided by Mr trackman. I could buy a Ping lst off the shelf. But if it’s the wrong shaft, I wouldn’t gain max benefit anyway. So these findings (while interesting), are only for non fitting / off the rack purchases.

gotwoody

1 year ago

Should a golfer w/-17 hc and swing speed 110 be testing M4 or Rouge Draw? Understand MGS will be releasing results by swing speed in future, but I personally find what was released today difficult to evaluate. All that said, I’m a contributor and appreciate the effort MGS makes.

It’s hard to give a good answer for that. Rogue Draw is about increased shot shape correction, so unless you struggle with slicing the ball or make consistent heel-side contact, it’s probably not for you.

If the handicap comes from inconsistent driving, then maximum forgiveness (G400 MAX had the narrowest standard deviations for ball speed across the full test pool).

WOW Why would you not include that extremely important piece of data in the testing. Drivers need to go long 1st of all or I can just hit my 3 wood, and I need to be able to find it and hit it again. It is far more important to know how many seriously crappy shots were hit than how close they were to the center.

Without other metrics, it’s interesting, but would you want a driver that produced consistent ball speed, but was 10 yards shorter than another? Would you want a driver that had produced consistent ball speed, but seldom hit a fairway?

That’s not to say that’s what happened with G400 MAX (it was excellent), but the point is that conventional metrics don’t exist in a vacuum, which is why we like the Strokes Gained methodology. It leverages aspects of distance, accuracy, and consistency to provide an outstanding baseline for comparison.

GolfSpy_Rob

1 year ago

FWIW swing speed and handicap have very little to do with model of driver you should play. Do you realize there are Taylormade Tour staff that are playing the M4 D model? They want help keeping their fade in control.

Chris C.

1 year ago

I would like to see a ranking for “outliers”. You can call it consistency. By eliminating worm burners, pop ups and AMFs, you eliminate a significant aspect of using real people to perform your testing instead of robots. When I was fitted for my driver last year, my fitter and I essentially did the same thing that your testing appears to do with outliers. the result was that I ended up with the Epic. It was longer and straighter than any other driver. Alas, on the course I could count on it to have 2 to 3 WTF moments per round. I ended up gaming a Mizuno JPX900 and a Cleveland Launcher HB for the balance of the year. Neither was longer nor straighter. However, my WTF moments were reduced to 1 to 2 every 4 to 6 rounds. Your data reflects little difference in the drivers when they are struck well. I am curious as to whether or not any particular driver required more mulligans

Lou Body

1 year ago

I was very surprised to see how low the XXIO 10 Driver was ranked. I own one and think it is fabulous and, for certain, the easiest driver to launch that I’ve ever hit. At age 78, with a Swing Speed to match, it has gained straight down the middle yards for me. All your highly ranked Drivers are the pro or top amateur choices and, to me, that indicates low handicappers’ performance in your tests dominate your results. There is just no way that a bunch of slower swinging Seniors would ever rank the XXIO 10 so far below the Sub Zero’s and M3’s etc.

It’s not about ranking (votes) around here, it’s about performance and performance only. We’ll be breaking-out performance by slower swing speeds soon. It will be interesting to see how the XXIO fails when we look at a more specific audience.

H. Brink

1 year ago

The irony in all this is, for the vast majority of these drivers, you’re talking about a difference of 1 mph ball speed and maybe 5 yards of carry.

In other words, the vast majority of drivers vary by less than 1%. Find something you love and enjoy the rewards of the placebo effect. OR, recognize that a new driver won’t do much to lower your handicap and put that $400 to tee times and lessons.

James

Johnny Penso

1 year ago

Best comment so far. I was looking at the Tommy Armour driver the other day as something to experiment with as a shorter driver but didn’t buy it because I didn’t want my experiment tainted by a much shorter distance driver. Turns out its just as long as everything else and the dispersion is close enough as well. At 1/4 the price of so called high end drivers it’s a heck of a bargain!

Mike

Stock is the greatest percentage by far. Exotics are rare in the wild and in the greatest percentage of those cases, it’s exotic ordered from the OEM – and there’s not a ton of overlap there.

Realistically, how many upgrades do you think are in a Vertical Groove, or a Hot Launch, or a Tommy Armour? If we picked a shaft, we’d invariably pick one that isn’t available across all, or even most of the OEM lineups.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s interesting…and it’s something we’ve talked about from time to time, but that isn’t how most people buy golf clubs, which means it falls outside the scope of this test.

We have done some what’s in the testers bag vs something else, but it’s not a part of this test.

With any test, you have to choose your apples. Choosing a single shaft would normalize one variable, but it does nothing to replicate the choices the majority of consumers face when they walk into a golf shop. As I’ve said, it’s not uninteresting, it’s just not what this test is about.

Mike

1 year ago

When l say us, l mean the the golfers who visit this and many other sites, because we live and breathe golf. We change our equipment much more often than the casual golfer, who will play stock shafts. I know l definitely have a favorite shaft.

Sproutland

Gorden

1 year ago

As was written by Mr. Adams Golf a few years back, forget the cost of the shaft, do you really think for one minute a company is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a club head and then are not going to put a shaft in it that will work with it….taylormade etc. puts a shaft in their over the counter driver that fits and works with the head…shaft flex is the most important “fitting” of most clubs…

GolfJunkie302

MGolfer

1 year ago

The test results are data. Data does not lie. But the data does not explain the reality. The reality is that many golfers tried and got fitted with Callaway Rogue and swear by it. The data however shows that there is very little difference between the top 10 drivers.

We’re going to do swing speed breakdowns in the coming weeks. The averages are very close, however, we often see much more significant differences when we look at the results on an individual basis.

It’s for that reason why we updated our ranking system to consider statistically reliability, and why we know rank based on how often each driver was in the top performing group for each golfer.

Regarding the Rogue (and Rogue Sub Zero), our group data suggests they are the longest two drivers on the market. That said, we use Strokes Gained which is a much more complete metric and I suspect – in time – it’s something you’ll start to see more fitters integrate into their fitting methodologies.

Dan

1 year ago

Any rough estimate on the higher swing speed results release date?

Nick

1 year ago

Tony, do you have a theory as to why the top 3 are the lower spin models? I believe they (especially) taylormade could do more to offer lower spin but they don’t because they want the average golfer to get the ball up in the air so bad but fail to realize that people need lower spin in general. None of their 9* 440’s actually spec even close to 9*. Why not offer a 7* or a 9* that actually specs at 9*. I’m a high spin player and am struggling to find something. 2200 RPM’s at 133 BS translates to a lot higher at 180 BS which become detrimental.

I just addressed a similar comment below. Basically, my thinking is that today’s low spin drivers are significantly more well-rounded than in the past. That low(ish) spin now comes with higher launch and significantly higher MOI.

andre2you

1 year ago

I understand that you can’t get every single driver version but for Bridgestone you used the highest launching/highest spinning version of their Driver. I wonder if you had used the XD-3 or XD-7 the results would have been different. Anyway, keep up the good work………..

While we do have a generally specific list of what we like the OEMs to send, it is ultimately up to their discretion on which products they choose to have in testing. We ask for any and all products that they wish to submit.

Sam, I was wondering how the HL3 driver model was selected as Tour Edge Golf’s representative in these tests. Was this due to MGS’ “specific list”, or was the submittal of that model based solely on what Tour Edge elected to send you for inclusion?

Frank Molfetta

1 year ago

I think this is a solid list. I tested many of these clubs, and personally I preferred the M4 to the M3, Ping was a close 2nd. Ping was very forgiving, but gave up some yards to the M4 in my testing, despite me hitting it on the screws every time. Obviously to each his own, this is my personal experience, and the differences in the data are so minute you really can’t go wrong.

Nick

1 year ago

I had a theory based on studying a few things that Taylormade’s spin would be higher this year! Their 440 last year came in at 2000 RPM’s at 139 Ball Speed whereas this year it came in at 2200 RPM’s off only 133 Ball Speed. I’ve measured the actual loft of many 440’s and EVERY one of them came in at least 1* higher than stated! Taylormade wants us to get the ball up in the air but doesn’t think about those who actually need low loft and spin. Lowest option in the 440 also went up to 9* this year too.

Is there anywhere to find more detail about the data fields (i.e. shot area, SGva, Yards from Center) ? I am not sure if I would rank them the same if I understood what these calculations are and how they are done.

Gary Sohosky

William Russell

1 year ago

G400 Max beats the Rogue SZ and M3 in every catagory besides slightly higher spin, .10ish less total yards against the SZ, and .8 more yards off center. The G400 Max has better ball speed, more carry, better launch, better dispersion, better total distance than the M3.

M3 literally was better in 2 categories than the 400 Max and the Rogue SZ was better in 3.

I think MGS was drunk when they ranked the data or was afraid to put 2 ping drivers in the top 3.

William – Please take a few minutes to read the how we test and rank page. I think you’ll find that we’re not drunk and instead used Strokes Gained to determine which drivers appeared in the top group (at a 95% confidence interval) for the greatest percentage of testers.

Group averages are fun, but they don’t tell us much about how clubs perform for individual golfers.

Bulldog

This year we adjusted our test group to accurately reflect the golfing public. We effectively went older/slower/higher handicap – you are correct to say the 2017 numbers reflect longer distance averages.

Bulldog

Ernest Poirier

It’s Strokes Gained vs. the Average (Strokes Gained). When looking at group averages, Strokes Gained doesn’t work well because longer hitters will inherently produce shots with higher strokes gained values. To normalize the distance contribution, we compare the Strokes Gained of each club for each tester to his average Strokes Gained.

As a quick example (using way bigger numbers than what we see), if you averaged a strokes gained value of 1 across the entire test (all 25 drivers), but with driver A averaged 1.5 and with driver B averaged .5, your SGvA for Driver A would be +.5 and with Driver B it would be -.5. For our charts we take those averages across the entire pool

Driving Range Dave

johnnythunders

1 year ago

The differences between the best and worst drivers as far as distance and accuracy is very small again this year as the data clearly points out. This is a great time to be a golfer because there are many options to choose from at all about the same performance. You have to go try them. Also when you try them against last years latest and greatest you find the same very small differences and in some cases none. I tested my Fusion against the Epic and Rogue and with same shaft within a few yards and comparable distances on mishits. Why upgrade? If I was buying I would be looking at the Ping G400 Max and Mizuno ST180 HL. I found the regular ST180 to be very low spin for me and my 90mph and would need to go up in loft. The G400 Max is just so forgiving and was clearly better for me than the G400 LST. I usually fit myself but this I came to preliminary conclusion and will have it validated at a fitter this week. Looking forward to the different swing speed data and the center of gravity data. Keep up the excellent work.

Anonymous

1 year ago

Yeah, safe to say that Mizuno is the sleeper driver here? I game Mizzy irons and my local pro is a big fan of Mizuno, so I’m hoping to get a chance at testing it out later this season. The top Ping’s performance to price ratio is pretty impressive, though.

Anonymous

1 year ago

So stoked on this. I was fitted for this atthe end of last season. And I can honestly say. No club has ever changed my game as much as this stick!!!golf spy #1. I can now show this to the mrs to justify it!!

Robert

1 year ago

It’s interesting how the M3 440 is so high up with a lower ball speed. I assume the weights were default for the testing? Maybe this is why we saw a lot of pros wanting both weights forward to get better ball speed.

Robert

1 year ago

Ah, I see now that they are fit properly for each person, and now that I read it I remember it from before. Massive brain fart (And not enough coffee yet). Anyway, it would be interesting to see what the all of the different weight settings were for the M3 since it is probably the most configurable driver of the bunch. Any idea how many ended up with both weights forward?

The data shown above reflect the average of the entire test group. We always see differences in performance among swing speeds. It’s more than likely the drivers that perform best for high SS guys will be different than the low SS guys.

Robert B

1 year ago

Ping engineering rises to the top-good stuff! Thanks MGS! This cements in that I’ll definitely be looking to get fit for a new G400 soon in order to replace my G-Series. I was thinking of doing this anyhow simply based on the fact that I hate the sound of my G driver and want a better experience in that regard. Keep up the solid work out there!

MGoBlue100

I was fitted for the G400 LST last fall and saw a 20 yard increase off the tee compared to my Titleist 917 D2. This driver brought my spin rate down. I have a regular shaft and the club is set to 9 degrees. I still can hit it high even with the lower loft. Love the sound and feel. Glad to see your test confirmed my fitting.

Einaya

1 year ago

Surprised to see the ‘Tour’ version of each driver snag the top three spot. Especially with the 440 driver as opposed to the 460 version. I wonder if it is because of the more expensive shaft attached to these version? Also kinda cool to see Mizuno ranking high up there with the big NA companies.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that so-called tour drivers have evolved significantly over the last several years. The M4 400 is the anomaly in the result, and I think its result comes largely from its tight dispersion area and our testers ability to keep it in the fairway.

The LST and Rogue SZ are not anything close to those player’s drivers of old. Dating back to the G30, PING’s LST(ec) models have still been more forgiving than the majority of what’s on the market. It wasn’t long ago to find tour drivers with MOI below 4000 (unforgiving), however, both the Rogue SZ (weight back) and G400 LST have MOI’s around 5000, which is very forgiving and a couple of years ago or less would have been among the absolutely most forgiving.

Tony Z

1 year ago

My XXIO X is the best driver I have ever played. Gained 17 yards and way more accurate than my custom fit Callaway Epic. I was told at my fitting that they are specifically designed for speeds under 95 mph. Curious to see how all of these drivers would have tested at different swing speeds. 3 low spin heads are horrible for most amateurs

Johnny Golfnut

We’re actually really happy with where we landed from an average distance perspective. The goal is to cover a broad range of golfers, and with our averages so close to the real-world average, I think we did that. Having said that, yes, we will be breaking everything out by low, moderate, and high swing speeds in the next week or so.

Robert

Kramer

1 year ago

Really interesting that the top three are more “better player” setups. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on why this is, and if more of you are moving towards the more Low Spin/Less Forgiveness models. Thanks for the test, keep up the good work!

GolfSpy_Rob

I think there is a misconception that a “low spin” driver is for better players only. While true it may be a good fit for someone with a high swing speed that generates a lot of spin with that speed.

It’s also often a good fit for a moderate swing speed player, that imparts spin due to swing “flaws” such as outside to in, or coming in steep. It can help reduce the amount of spin from that and help minimize the misses as a result.

This was proven as a fact when I went for fittings with both Callaway and Titleist and I was fit into the lower spin models of Rogue SZ and Titleist 917 D3 with a 90 mph swing and a mid teen HC

Ernest Poirier

1 year ago

Thank you SAM ROBINSON. I loved that article from last year. It makes so much more sense, since we all don’t share the same club head speed.

McaseyM

1 year ago

Congrats to Ping!. Bubba’s stick takes the 2018 crown. Awesome to see Mizuno crack the top 5 with the ST 180. Cleveland takes #12. And for all the new readers out there, the Most Wanted Driver does NOT mean it will be the best for everyone and may not be the best for you….so please don’t start with the ” I hit it and it’s crap” discussion.